Carrier Sorties Flights Of Fancy

Pitching Deck Tests Pilot Skills

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT — As the sky threw ice on Hampton Roads last weekend, 80 miles off the coast of North Carolina the sea was throwing up seven foot waves.

The weather was ugly. Too ugly to test pilots' ability to land a multi-million-dollar jet on the pitching deck of a supercarrier - not when it's the pilots' first time.

"There's no reason to do this to them," said Capt. Alan M. Gemmill, the USS Theodore Roosevelt's executive officer, shortly after flight operations were canceled for the day, after only an hour.

While the skies were fairly clear, seas were high and the 1,092-foot-long flight deck on the massive carrier was pitching up and down as much as 12 feet.

That meant that the landing strip was rising or dropping 12 feet, unexpectedly, leaving pilots only seconds to adjust.

After the fourth time, an enlisted sailor in the air traffic control center noted that the Tomcat had only so much fuel.

The next time around, the Tomcat made it to the deck. Barely. The pilot had hooked the fourth and final jet arresting wire, the last stop before the ocean.

"I'm surprised he made it," muttered one sailor. "He was way off."

A few moments later, some of the dozen or so officers and sailors jammed into the control center sucked in their breaths as a propeller-driven C-2 COD bearing mail and passengers swooped down to ward the deck.

As the wheels of the COD came within feet of the deck, the ship pitched. The wings of the COD dipped wildly from side to side as the pilot made a successful last-minute adjustment and hooked the wire.

Shortly thereafter, flight operations were suspended.

Each year, the Atlantic Fleet qualifies about 350 naval aviators for fleet tactical aircraft, including fighter and attack jets as well as surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft, said Lt. Cmdr. Mike John, a spokesman for the fleet's Naval Air Force.

By Wednesday, three days after the aborted training effort and the end of the week-long cruise in the Virginia Capes, 37 A-6 Intruder and F-14 Tomcat pilots and bombardier-navigators had qualified for fleet flying.

Of those, 13 - more than a third - had to wait until the last day to qualify.

While there was a detachment of experienced Marine pilots from Cherry Point, N.C., along for the ride so they could requalify in their A-6 Intruders, many of the pilots and bombardier-navigators being qualified during the week-long session aboard the Roosevelt were from two Naval Air Station Oceana squadrons based in Norfolk.

They had never landed on a carrier deck in anything other than a training jet.

Now the training wheels were gone. Replacing them were the wheels and wings of powerful F-14 Tomcats and A-6 Intruders.

They were the same aircraft the fleet pilots would be expected to take into combat, the same aircraft they would be expected to bring back and set down on a moving carrier deck.

"If you can't land on a carrier, you're no good to the Navy," said Cmdr. Chuck Giger, the Roosevelt's assistant air operations officer, also known as the "Mini-Boss."

Gemmill and other officers agreed that had last weekend's mission been anything other than training qualifications, the pilots other than students, and the weather rougher than it was, flight operations could have gone on all day and perhaps all night.

To qualify for fleet flying, pilots have to make 10 daytime and six nighttime landings, Giger said.

Under ideal conditions, there are 15 to 20 seconds between "meatball" and "hook" in landing on a carrier, Giger said.

The "meatball" is the middle of five rows of lights at the edge of the carrier deck that a pilot watches for to learn if the aircraft is either too high or too low, Giger said.

If the row of lights is green, the approach is almost perfect, Giger said. If the lights are yellow, the aircraft is either slightly too high or low.

If the lights are red, the aircraft may not be landing in one piece.

Before that happens, generally the landing signal officer standing at the deck's edge will wave a pilot away, Giger said. If a plane's approach is OK, after sighting on the gyro-stabilized "meatball" and with permission from the landing officer, a pilot descends.

In landing, the aircraft must "hook" on one of four steel wires strung across the aft end of the flight deck. The landing area of the deck is angled from the aft of the ship to the left, or port, side. Preferably, a pilot hooks the third wire, going from a speed of 140 mph to zero in about a second.

If a pilot comes in too low, the plane may catch the first or second wire, Giger said. If a pilot comes in too high, it may be the fourth wire.

If a pilot misses altogether, he's a "bolter."

To prevent a "bolter" from going off the edge of the landing part of the flight deck, a pilot pushes the aircraft to full power just before touchdown so that the aircraft can take off again from the end of the deck.